I just got a notice that SB190, the bill that could chase off Macquarie, will be heard Monday February 24 at 8AM in the Senate Business and Labor committee. Word on the street is that members of the committee have been getting a lot of emails in opposition (good job, folks), but we also should show up to speak against it. Make sure you spread this around so we can show up in force!
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Nice! My State Senator is on the Committee, so I’ll make a phone call tomorrow and shoot some emails off.
What’s your take on Amendment 1 to SB190? I quickly flipped through it, and it looks like it carved out an extremely small and rare exception, but the affect of SB190 would be unchanged.
It so far looks like it puts the utility fee back in play if cities have a plan to exempt people who are unable to afford it. I’m still poking through the state code (a REALLY fun Friday night activity) to see what the full implications are.
That was my take on it as well. In whole, it sounds like it only applies IF the city has established a procedure for the circumstance of: IF a person is economically indigent, and IF this person has requested to opt out from the fee.
In my opinion, this would be such a small subset of people, that when taken into the greater context of furthering greater transparency by allowing municipalities to go the utility fee route for all those within that municipality, it seems like a moot point?
This is the key amendment:
Except as provided in Subsection (12), a municipality’s actions under this section related to works or systems involving public telecommunications services or cable television services are
subject to the requirements of Chapter 18, Municipal Cable Television and Public Telecommunications
Services Act
12 (A) A municipality that constructs telecommunication lines and related facilities, and operates them as a communications utility that is open to providers, may enact a per address utility fee to cover
costs related to the utility if the municipality has established a procedure for a person who is economically indigent to opt out of the fee.